Steve Schwartz:

>Of course words can express emotion, and furthermore fairly precisely.

Words can certainly give definite names to emotions, but even verbal
expressions of emotions have strong nonverbal accompaniments, such as
delivery that is smooth or agitated, gentle or fierce, loud or soft, with
strained or relaxed tones, etc.  The listener, in fact, very often infers
the emotional state of the speaker more by these signals than by what words
the speaker chooses (which may actually be selected for their neutrality or
irony).  Fully to understand, or to interpret correctly, these accompanying
signals probably requires first hand experience of the emotions being
expressed, although at the time of witnessing the expression the observer
can of course be calm (though strong emotions do tend to be catching.)

>If music does express emotion - as opposed to stir emotion in a listener -
>then it does so pretty vaguely.  In short, it lacks the precision normally
>associated with "real" languages, for no other reason than emotions all
>by themselves are fairly imprecise.

By analogy with what I said above, music expresses emotion--when it does,
which is surely not always, in my opinion--the way human mannerisms do,
and these musically expressed or embodied emotions are recognized, or
interpreted, though indications of tempo, harmony, dynamics, timbre and
tone coloring, etc., probably with a greater range of resources than a
single person has through nuances of voice and manner, and thus perhaps
with a great deal of precision.  These musical/emotional associations are
learned culturally, the way linguistic behavior is learned.  Again, the
listener need not actually feel the emotions, except empathetically, and
may resist or be repelled by the music because of a contrary mood or
emotional state.

I agree that emotions themselves are pretty "imprecise," especially when
experienced subjectively.  Some perhaps cannot be expressed.  It also
may be that calm observers can sometimes be better judges of a person's
emotional state than the individual in the grip of strong feelings.

>I do believe that conventional associations have grown around certain
>kinds of music, mostly that written in the 19th century.

Yes.

>But even here, there's plenty of abstract work.  really don't know what
>emotion the Brahms first symphony expresses

I think that if we went at it collectively we could come up with a number
of descriptive terms to interpret what is expressed in this work that would
make a lot of sense and explain plausibly some features of the work, that
might be puzzling in the absence of any reference to human feelings.  I
would suggest that we could at the same time discuss Brahms D minor Piano
Concerto, Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, and Tchaikovsky's Fourth and Fifth
Symphonies in analogous terms with some degree of success.  We would be, of
course, in the realm of interpretation rather than precise "translation"
(and we know what they say about translators as betrayers anyway.)

>I'd like to put in a word, however, for "abstract" listening to abstract
>works.  I don't know, for example, what emotion Hindemith's second piano
>sonata expresses.  I do know that the unfolding of its form is to me very
>beautiful.  I 'm not listening for emotions within the music, but for
>something fundamentally technical and beautifully done.

No disagreement here.

Jim Tobin